United KingdomWho was Harold Macmillan?
Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894 into a publishing family and was wounded several times in the First World War. As MP for Stockton-on-Tees in the 1930s he saw mass unemployment at first hand and set out a centrist programme in his 1938 book The Middle Way. After 1951 he served as Minister of Housing, Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He became Prime Minister after the Suez crisis in January 1957 and won an increased majority in 1959. His later years in office were marked by balance of payments problems, a dramatic cabinet reshuffle in 1962 and the Profumo scandal. He resigned in October 1963 because of illness, became Earl of Stockton in 1984 and died in 1986.
Political views
Advocated a broadly centrist political philosophy, combining private enterprise with planning, in his 1938 book The Middle Way.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAs Housing Minister met the target of building 300,000 homes a year by 1953.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgWas determined to avoid a return to the mass unemployment of the 1930s and claimed rising living standards meant Britons had never had it so good.
Source: gov.ukUsed his 1960 wind of change speech to distance Britain from apartheid and speeded up decolonisation.
Source: gov.ukRepaired relations with the United States after Suez and maintained the British nuclear deterrent.
Source: gov.ukApplied to join the European Economic Community, an application vetoed by France in January 1963.
Source: gov.ukHelped negotiate the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United States and the Soviet Union.
Source: gov.uk
Legacy
Supporters credit Macmillan with restoring confidence after Suez, presiding over rising prosperity, repairing the Anglo-American alliance and managing the retreat from empire with relatively little conflict. Critics argue that his governments neglected Britain's underlying economic weaknesses and that his style looked increasingly out of touch by the early 1960s. His government faced criticism over colonial emergencies, including the killing of 11 detainees by guards at the Hola camp in Kenya in 1959, and was damaged by the Profumo affair. In retirement he criticised Margaret Thatcher's privatisation policy, which he is widely reported to have likened to selling the family silver.